


Before and after

by Ginasfeather



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:55:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28947030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ginasfeather/pseuds/Ginasfeather
Summary: A short insight to Regina's thoughts, before and after the life altering event of falling down her balcony as a young queen.
Kudos: 2





	Before and after

**Author's Note:**

> TW: mentions of suicidal thoughts.

Ever since Regina fell down her balcony after she'd angrily tested its railings' resistance, she's been different. Changed.

Before, life wasn't kind to her and she didn't hesitate in voicing her thoughts about that. Not to her father, telling him _I don't want this life._ Not to herself, thinking time and again about the life she _could_ have had, but would never have with her stableboy.

Before, living was hell and Regina wanted to die. This, she made no qualms in voicing, having lost count of the times she's said _please just kill me,_ even if most of the time she'd directed her words at no one. Or, at the universe, maybe. She'd written it in her diary, too. Time and again. After a while it became something she just wrote down, no context given. It was just something that ran through her head at any given moment, which she felt like expressing. Wanting to die was something that started after her love was killed, and took over her mind more and more each passing day since then. It had almost become _normal_.

Before, Regina truly thought that life wasn't worth living. Not her own life, anyways. She truly believed that she wanted nothing more than to simply cease existing. She never acted on those thoughts though, because that was just it. She wanted to _cease existing_. Killing herself was scarier, and was never _really_ considered.

And then, it happened. In a rage, she'd walked up to the edge of her balcony and forcefully pushed the railing, never expecting it to give out. She'd lost her balance, and fell. She _fell_.

Those few seconds, falling through the air and seeing the ground fast approaching and when she thought she was going to die, were the scariest moments in her life.

It had been a close call, but she'd lived.

After it had happened, Regina realized; she didn't want to die. She didn't want _this_ life, but she didn't want to stop living altogether, either.

After, she couldn't shake the feeling that maybe, just maybe, she had called this near death upon herself by thinking and saying she'd wanted to die all those times. Maybe she'd spoken it into existence. She couldn't shake the feeling that this experience was her warning. A warning, telling her that if she didn't start appreciating life, she'd simply die. And before; Regina would have wanted that. But after; not anymore.

After, life still wasn't kind to her. Her broken heart reminded her, every day, of her loss and of her broken future.

After, life was still a living hell. Being married to someone she had no interest in, and being forced to endure his need for _copulation_ , she still didn't appreciate her life.

But after, she also knew what awaited her if she had those thoughts again, about wanting to die; bad thoughts. The universe, or some God, maybe, would make sure she never had a better life, by taking her life altogether.

After, she still sometimes noticed those bad thoughts occurring, in the very back of her mind. Maybe it had become a force of habit. But never, never, would she actually _think_ those thoughts again.

Never would the words _I want to die_ pass her lips again. Never would she write them down again, and never would they shoot through her mind again.

Because Regina Mills didn't want to die. At least that's what she told herself and any higher deity that might be listening.


End file.
